Note 10 — Chapter VIII · 1831.

"The Duke was not in his place in the House of Lords on that memorable day when the King went down to dissolve Parliament.[10] He had been in attendance, for some time previously, at the sick bed of the Duchess, and she expired just as the Park guns began to fire. He was, therefore, ignorant of the state into which London had fallen, till a surging crowd swept up from Westminster to Piccadilly, shouting and yelling, and offering violence to all whom they suspected of being Anti-Reformers. By-and-by, volleys of stones came crashing through the windows at Apsley house, breaking them to pieces and doing injury to more than one valuable picture in the gallery. The Duke bore the outrage as well as he could, but determined never to run a similar risk again. He guarded his windows, as soon as quiet was restored, with iron shutters, and left them there to the day of his death, a standing memento of a nation's ingratitude."